Friday, June 13, 2014

LE MANS: 2014 Epic Race sees a New Direction - Will it be Toyota's year...

Audi hopes its R18 E-Tron Quattro will once again
be victorious at this year's Le Mans classic. (Image source: carwitter.com)

Once again it's time for the "Mack
Daddy" of all endurance races to commence, which although traditionally
marks the start of summer to Mwah, it also typically signals that Daylight is
to begin getting shorter here in North America which is a pity for me, but I
digress...

This year's honorary members taking part in
the French classic include "Fredrico Suave" (Fernando Alonso) who
will waive the Green flag and thee "Scottish Terrier," three-time 24
Heurs du Mans winner and reigning WEC champion Allan McNish as the Grand
Marshal.

Although there's nine LMP1 entries this year,
I don't expect Rebellion Racing to be victorious, as I've listed the three main
contenders for victory this year, albeit I don't expect Porsche to win either,
since after all its their debutant race since returning to the top class in the
new Hybrid era.

Thus, while I'm hoping for one of the
Toyota's to be triumphant, as surely they'd prefer seeing Nakajima on the
podium's top step, I'm still undecided between the two entries, while I suppose
Y'all should neverbet against Audi.

TOYOTA

Although Toyota ultimately lost the WEC crown
and Le Mans to its German rival Audi last year, nevertheless it finished
runner-up at Circuit de la Sarthe and has impressively blitzed the field in
this year's opening rounds of the World Endurance Championship with its latest
Sports Car challenger the TSO40-Hybrid, as the Japanese team retains all six of
its drivers from 2013, many being past Formula 1 pilots, as could this be
Toyota's year to join the ranks of Mazda as overall winners?

Toyota Racing

Chassis: TS040-Hybrid

(7) Alexander Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Nicolas
Lapierre

(8) Anthony Davidson, Stephane
Sarrazin and Sebastien Buemi

AUDI

Suppose Y'all can never count out Audi at Le
Mans, especially since they're not only the defending winners but have won the
last four-races, as the German marque will once again enter three R18 E-Tron
Quattro's, the numbers 1, 2 and 3, with "Mr. Le Mans," aka Tom
Kristensen spearheading the effort - with Audi seeking its 13th win in 16-attempts,
as they're only three wins shy of equaling Porsche's all-time record of 16
overall victories...

As
they've only lost twice to rival competitors since entering prototype
competition in 1999, when BMW was victorious and Peugeot defeated them in 2009
- while technically Bentley won in 2003, albeit their parent company Audi
supplied them much of its winning technology that year.

Audi Sport Team Joest

Chassis: R-18 E-Tron Quattro

(1) Tom Kristensen, Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi

(2) Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fasller and Andre Lotterer

(3) Oliver Jarvis, Marco
Bonanomi and Felipe Albuquerque

PORSCHE

As the New Kids on the Block, not really sure
what to expect for Porsche's first time out in the new Hybrid era, although
Porsche is synonymous with winning at Le Mans and has very wisely split the
accomplished pair of former winners Romain Dumas and Timo Bernard, who won in
2010 for Audi as the lead drivers ofits
two car effort respectively.

Obviously the highest profile star upon the
team is ex-Formula 1 Ace Mark Webber who drove alongside Quadruple world
champion Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing, while Neil Jani has past F1
experience and the 'Kiwi Brendon Hartley was an aspiring F1 driver who's turned
his attention towards Sports Cars after failing to find a Grand Prix seat,
whilst I'm completely unaware of Marc Lieb, who apparently has an engineering
background along with being Bloody Quick! Having won three class victories at
Le Mans, the Porsche Carrera Cup along with other accolades...

Porsche Team

Chassis: 919-Hybrid

(14) Romain Dumas, Neil Jani and Marc
Lieb

(20) Timo Bernard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley

NISSAN

Meanwhile, it's just been revealed that
Nissan will return to LMP1 competition with a two-car entry in 2015, as this
apparently was part of the ACO granting its approval for its controversial
"Garage-56" ZEOD RC entry this year...

And as typical, I cannot find any definitive
press releases regarding this year's television coverage Stateside other than
the race will be shown live on the Fox family 'O networks, whatever the HELL
that means, as we don't get FS2 here in Seattle, although I'd expect portions
to be shown on FS1, nee Fox Sports-1, to which I'm not sure if I'll be watching
or not? So as always: Check
your local listings!

Joest
team for building a new chassis, which Lucas di Grassi then went and promptly
crashed exiting the Indianapolis corner - once again during qualifying - which
the team has since repaired the minor cosmetic damage to the car's front end, with
the No. 1 rolling off from an unaccustomed P7 Saturday...

shed exiting the Indianapolis corner - once again during qualifying - which
the team has since repaired the minor cosmetic damage to the car's front end, with
the No. 1 rolling off from an unaccustomed P7 Saturday...

UPDATE

Due to Loic Duval's 'Meaga shunt
at the Porsche Curves, which has claimed a number of victims Pre-race this
year, Doctors have not given Duval permission to race this weekend and thus,
2009 winner Marc Gené, an ex-Williams and Ferrari F1
test driver amongst things has been called up from his LMP2 team to join the
Audi squad as Duval's replacement.

As Kudos to the Audi Sport Joest
team for building a new chassis, which Lucas di Grassi then went and promptly
crashed exiting the Indianapolis corner - once again during qualifying - which
the team has since repaired the minor cosmetic damage to the car's front end, with
the No. 1 rolling off from an unaccustomed P7 Saturday...